


Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve

by gekidasa



Category: Kamen Rider Kabuto
Genre: M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-25
Updated: 2011-03-25
Packaged: 2017-10-17 06:42:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gekidasa/pseuds/gekidasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yaguruma thinks back on what he could have done differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Yaguruma and Kageyama's whole storyline.

When did it all go so wrong? When Kageyama fell ill, surely? They were doing all right before that, after all, and Yaguruma had found the photo, the promise of their white night... if only he’d reached Kageyama sooner.

But no, it was already too late by the time he found Kageyama feverish in that alley.

Earlier then. When Kageyama first got obsessed with those pendants Zect was handing out. Yaguruma had no illusions left about Zect, he’d known all along that something was off about them. He should have warned Kageyama, he shouldn’t have let him out of his sight, to go chasing after them as if they were a lifeline. He could have prevented it all.

No. He couldn’t have. If it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. Kageyama had been too obsessed.

Even earlier then. That afternoon at the docks, when he smashed the little ceramic owl that Kageyama was keeping as if it were a treasure? Yaguruma realized now that he had destroyed the owl, but not the desperate need, the self-destructive hope in Kageyama’s heart. He’d tried explaining it to him, then and so many other times, but the way Kageyama treasured that little bauble should have warned him that he didn’t understand or believe, not completely. He should have been more convincing, more understanding. Maybe if he’d let him keep it, Kageyama wouldn’t have felt he needed the pendant.

No. Kageyama had been more broken than the remains of the owl long before that day.

Earlier. The day he took Kageyama back so they could walk in the darkness together.

But what could he have done differently that day? Saved him from the Worm, then left him again to continue destroying himself? Kageyama would have been dead in weeks, days even. Without Yaguruma at his side, he’d already fallen so far, and without him he’d have been finished. Whatever else anyone thought of the path they walked, bringing Kageyama along had saved him, for a little while at least.

It had been earlier. He shouldn’t have stayed away so long. Oh, he hadn’t really been gone, not for very long anyway. He’d come back well before he’d made his presence known, unnoticed because Kageyama was blinded by the light, because when he was TheBee he had never thought to look down into the shadows from where Yaguruma watched and followed, a shadow of his former self. It had suited Yaguruma fine. He thought he’d known better than to reach for him then, and so he’d stood aside, watching as Kageyama destroyed and demeaned himself with every step. He should have made himself known, he could have tried to stop it, to save him. If nothing else, he could have shown himself as a cautionary tale.

Yaguruma knew better than that. Even if he’d seen him, Kageyama would never have listened, would never have heeded anything Yaguruma had to say. Kageyama had to lose everything, he had to be forsaken by everyone but him, before he could ever allow himself to look at Yaguruma with anything other than contempt.

Earlier then. Before Kageyama had ever become TheBee.

Yaguruma swallowed hard, staring out into the dark beyond the chain link fence, not daring to turn to face the man that called him brother.

If Yaguruma hadn’t lost TheBee, Kageyama would never have become TheBee. If he hadn’t been so blinded by his hatred for Tendou, blinded to the point of losing sight of _perfect harmony_ , of everthing he held dear. If he hadn’t put his own wounded pride and need for vengeance before the welfare of Shadow, of his team, of his brothers. If he had stayed as their leader, their beacon... if he had stayed as Kageyama’s beacon, Kageyama wouldn’t have lost his way.

But that day, as they went into battle, it had already been too late. That day, there was already a bomb inside him, ticking away the moments until he destroyed everything he’d built.

Earlier.

When Kageyama had gotten hurt. Really, that had been the moment, hadn’t it? He’d allowed Tendou to hurt Kageyama. Before that, Tendou had had no power over Yaguruma. He’d simply been the object of a mission. Assimilate him or eliminate him. It had been that simple. But Kageyama had passed out on the way to the hospital and after that initial night in the hospital, watching over him, waiting, hoping, praying for him to wake up, nothing was ever simple again. And even as he’d finally accepted that Kageyama was more to him than the most promising of his subordinates, there was also a hard, simmering rage, a need to make the man responsible pay, not just for hurting Kageyama, but for humiliating him, for humiliating _them_ , for making a mockery of them. Tendou hadn’t laughed, not out loud, but he might as well have. Even after the doctor told Yaguruma that the young man would make a full recovery, even after Yaguruma felt the purest joy he’d ever experienced when their eyes met after Kageyama finally woke up, when he heard him say his name in a soft, tired whisper... even then there was that rage inside him, threatening to burn everything in the way of vengeance.

But he could have let it go. Not the mission, obviously, but he could have let the rage go, he could have stayed with Kageyama, with Shadow. _Perfect harmony_.

If only he had realized it then. Tendou hadn’t been worth it.

He saw Kageyama transform into Punch Hopper, heard him say good bye.

Yaguruma transformed into Kick Hopper, but he couldn’t bring himself to say good bye.

  
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